Airport Card fried, using Apple Express as wireless reciever??

[jssfunk]

Sorry in advance if this has been beaten to death on here but I have been at this for 3 days with no success finding a solution and hopefully someone can help me avoid the $700 repair on my AppleCare expired 17" MacBook Pro!

My Airport Card is fried, the Genius Bar concluded I need to replace my logic board as which is connected to the Airport Card internally which I personally would rather buy a new book rather than invest on repairing this one. Problem is with all of this talk about a possible new redesigned Pro possibly out next year, i dont want to be stuck with a dinosaur before I can pay the same amount for the latest and greatest.

I can get online via ethernet of course but I am going on vacation next week for 3 weeks and the ONLY internet access in the building is wireless.

IS there a way to use/convert my Airport Express Base Station into a wireless receiver by connecting into it from my laptop via ethernet? The Genius Bar guy mentioned something about 'repeating' but that only seems possibly by connecting directly into the source feeding the internet signal, basically I need to replace my internal Airport signal with another source.

And YES, I tried the USB wireless adapter idea, 2 of them actually, neither worked, possibly because both didn't have Snow Leopards driver updates and the 10.5 ones lay dormant.

I am trying to prolong the life of my laptop's usage by alternative measures of getting online wirelessly, please tell me someone can help!!!!

 

[jssfunk]

bumping

 

[blueroom]

The AirPort Express should be able to act as an Access Point. You have to plug it into the mains though.

An ASUS WL-330GE can also do this an can be powered from a USB port.

 

[jssfunk]

Do you know how this is done? Remember, where I am going on vacation is just me, my ethernet cable and my Airport Express Base Station...no access to any other routers that I would be getting my network from that I can plug into.

I experimented earlier and loaded the provided driver of a USB wireless router that didnt work in Mac mode into Parallels....worked like a charm in XP but I need it to work in Mac mode so I can run my Skype, AIM, Entourage, etc., apps that require a network, in Parallels mode it only works for Windows apps...very annoying!

I saw a local store that sells quite a few USB wireless adapters that I may just drag my laptop out to and try any that say work with Mac until I find one that fires up the wireless utility....unless someone knows how to do this Access Point thing?